I haven’t been as actively pursuing the 2011 Allen & Ginter insert sets as some of the other retro sets from last year. But I finished a couple of the mini insert sets off, with this being the first one.

Info about the set:

Set description: “These 10 second bananas, assistants, and also-rans finally get their place in the sun.” In other words, guys who played second fiddle. The mini cards have blue-gray border with a frame surrounding the picture of the subject.

Set composition: 10 cards, 1:12 odds (2011 Allen & Ginter’s)

Hall of Famers: None – it’s not a sports set. Plus by definition of the set – they are 2nd fiddle to some other guys who are Hall of Fame caliber!

How I put the set together:

4 cards from the 2 hobby boxes I bought

2 cards from trades

4 cards from Sportlots

Thoughts on the set: I like this concept. It’s not baseball, sure – but that’s the idea for Allen & Ginter. It would have been cool if they’d have made the set 15 cards and included some sports subjects. Lou Gehrig, Don Drysdale, Scottie Pippen, Mark Messier, Kobe Bryant (haha haha) would have been some good ideas here.

Card that completed my set: #PP3 – Watson

This was a card I got from a recent Sportlots purchase.

Highest book value: They all book for the same

Best card (my opinion): #PP3 – Watson

Anything related to Sherlock Holmes on a baseball card is pretty cool in my book.

Since this is a different kind of set – I’ll summarize the write-up on the back of each card:

PP1 – Antonio Meucci: A 19th century Italian immigrant who is believed to have developed a device that conducted sound across a wire well before Alexander Graham Bell. He submitted a caveat for his design in 1871, though he never earned a patent, and it’s possible he didn’t completely understand what his design did. Ultimately, Bell is credited with inventing the telephone.

PP2 – Mike Gellner: This is a pretty cool nod to previous A&G sets and the code cracking contest that is a part of each year’s product. In 2009, Nick Jacoby cracked the code and got a card in the next year’s set, but he had help from Gellner. Topps only allowed one person to get a card in the set, but they gave Gellner a card in this insert set 2 years later.

PP3 – Dr. Watson: The physician who worked with Sherlock Holmes from Arthur Conan Doyle’s 19th century mysteries, Watson is the ultimate sidekick. He’s sometimes portrayed as “bumbling”, but that wasn’t the intent in Doyle’s original creations.

PP4 – Igor: Another sidekick from a 19th century literary work, Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein and his monster are the most “famous” character’s from Mary Shelley’s book.

PP5 – The Hare: This one deserves to be in this insert set – his cocky attitude cost him a victory to the tortoise in one of Aesop’s fables. Slow and steady won the race. This one actually made me think – Goliath would have been a good addition to this set.

PP6 – Tonto: Another “sidekick” – Tonto was the Lone Ranger’s scout (Ke-mo Sah-bee) on the great frontier.

PP8 – Sancho Panza: Another literary sidekick – this one all the way back to the early 17th century. Panza was the squire for the legendary Don Quixote from the novel by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes.

PP9 – Thomas E. Dewey: Dewey was the governor of New York 1940’s and 1950’s. In 1948, the Chicago Tribune famously declared him the winner in the Presidential election over incumbent Harry Truman. Since he’s in this set – obviously that was a mistake by the future owner of the Cubbies.

PP10 – Toto: The loyal dog from The Wizard of Oz. There’s no place like home!

He’s in the set because he was one of 2 guys who cracked the Ginter code one year. The wording on the back is in code. I think if you substitute the letter 5 letters prior to the ones in the “gibberish” you get the answer – for example, the first word “BMNQJ” is “While”.
It says (I’ve seen this on a few sites):

While starting a baseball card collection for his two-year-old son Jacoby, Mike learned about the Ginter Code Promotion and teamed up to co-champion the 2009 Ginter code-cracking effort. Mike and Jacoby enjoy rooting for the Red Sox and collecting cards from their home in Portland, Oregon.